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MapView: Virtual Earth makes intuitive inferences for search queries based on the current mapview. If a user is hovering over Seattle and doesn’t enter the city name into address queries, Virtual Earth will automatically infer this information based on the map view.
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Reverse IP lookup: The map makes intuitive inferences for search queries based on the physical location from where the user is making a query.
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Culture: Users can configure culture settings on the map control. This can be used to restrict the results because the map control will return results based on the culture setting.
NOTE: This is available for GetDirections and Find-where calls. Microsoft will support Find-‘what-where’ at a later date.
Rooftop Geocoding
We have created a next-generation geocoding engine in support of Virtual Earth. The engine combines results from multiple geocoders to get detailed and up-to-date results. Additionally, it takes MapView, ReverseIP and Culture into account in order to provide more relevant results for the end-user.
NOTE: This is available for GetDirections and Find-where calls. Microsoft will support Find-‘what-where’ at a later date.
Safari support
The V6 Map Control includes Apple Safari 2.0 support. There is no route line functionality at this time. Safari will not be supported on Live Search Maps or on the iPhone.
Traffic Tile Overlay
The V6 Map Control now supports fetching of traffic tiles, for client token authenticated users, containing rendered traffic flow data. While the Virtual Earth Platform does not automatically offer incident information, users can query MapPoint Web Service to get this information.
Bird’s Eye pushpin accuracy
Bird’s eye pushpin placement accuracy has been enhanced for V6. In this release, when users convert pixels to latlong in bird’s eye, Virtual Earth will make server side calls for more accurate calculations taking into account camera metadata. When users add a pushpin in a road or aerial view, and switch to bird’s eye, the pushpin will still display in the correct location.
NOTE: Users must activate this functionality. A maximum of 50 pushpins will be supported for accuracy.
Customer Identification via Client Tokens
Client tokens can be obtained using production developer credentials and are used to identify transactions for reporting and billing purposes. Customers that use client tokens will have access to transaction reporting.
Transaction Reporting (beta)
Transaction reporting is now available in beta for Virtual Earth when customers implement the client token. These reports are available via the Virtual Earth platform Customer Services site. Customers are now able to see a preview of their billable transactions for the current month as well as their historical traffic for a given date range.
Localization
Users can specify a culture when calling VEMap.Find and VEMap.GetDirections and get localized results. Localization is supported in the following:
Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, English – United States, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese (JP Addresses Only), Norwegian (Bokmål), Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Chinese (within China only)
NOTE: This localization support is not available when using GetRoute to obtain a route or for labels on Map Tiles. This feature will be available end of 2007.
MapCruncher™ (Beta) for Microsoft® Virtual Earth™
MapCruncher makes it easy to publish drawn-to-scale maps overlaid in an application using the Virtual Earth map control. Once you are familiar with the tool, it can take approximately ten minutes to generate a new tile layer. Just find five to ten corresponding landmarks on your map and on the Virtual Earth map view, and MapCruncher will register your map to the global coordinate system, warp it to fit a Mercator projection, and generate a set of image tiles that can be seamlessly layered on top of Virtual Earth map control's standard road, hybrid, or aerial imagery. It even makes a sample HTML page for reference.
MapCruncher accepts a variety of vector formats (PDF, WMF, EMF) and raster formats (JPG, PNG, TIFF, GIF, BMP).
Download MapCruncher Beta for Microsoft Virtual Earth from the Microsoft Download Center.
Infrastructure Improvements
New investments in the Virtual Earth platform and infrastructure have resulted in 99.9% availability.
Bulk addition of VEShape
The new V6 API allows users to add multiple pushpins in a single call with enhanced performance over adding multiple pushpins separately.
zIndex support for VEShapes
The API will allow the user to specify whether a VEShape object appears “above” or “below” the other VEShape or Tile objects. The current mapcontrol handles zIndexes automatically when shapes are added to the map. The V6 API will allow users to optionally override the z-index.
3D collection model
Mash-up users can upload a read-only collection with 3D models that they have built. Users can then add pushpins and models to collections. When a user switches from 3D to 2D, models will appear as pushpins.
Note: This feature will be available at the end of 2007.
Get/Set Altitude
Users can now choose to specify the altitude, in meters, of a VELatLong object in addition its latitude and longitude.
Virtual Earth v6 SDKs
A new version of the Virtual Earth Interactive SDK is available, demonstrating the new functionality of the Virtual Earth Map Control with ease. Go to the iSDK.
You may also browse the SDK in the MSDN Library or download the SDK for offline viewing.
Other Information
For more information about the Virtual Earth platform; how it can enhance your applications and websites; and strengthen your business see Microsoft® Virtual Earth™.
For more information about licensing and pricing, contact maplic@microsoft.com